Monday, December 19, 2011

Happy Christmas, with help from Mr Blake...

One of my favourite books of the year was
Christopher Rowland's 'Blake and the Bible'. It is a wonderful
exploration of how this most eccentric of geniuses interpreted the Bible
and in so doing was inspired in the matter of his art. One of his
central convictions was that we are all participators in God's image and
that this participation extends to all things for 'everything that
lives is holy'. If I had one sentence to encapsulate my own credo that
would be it!

In the course of the book, Rowland explores Blake's strange painting of the Nativity (attached here).

William
Blake imagined that the Holy Family were both Mary & Joseph and
Elizabeth & Zacharias and their off-spring: Jesus and his cousin,
John.

In this, Blake's unique depiction of the Nativity, the sceptical Zacharias is absent, but all the others are present. Zacharias is probably outside, smoking a fag, and wondering what all the fuss is supposed to be about (or wondering in disbelief, not again, not again)!

Mary
lays in a swoon, in the arms of Joseph, Elizabeth holds out her hands
to greet a luminous, fully conscious Christ child, as her son, Jesus'
prophetic forerunner, John sits robustly watching, attending in her lap.

Through the window, shines a star/cross like light, heralding his
presence and symbolising that eternity breaks into time; and, on that
symbol, Christ is crucified into resurrection.

It is a deeply
mysterious painting that has taxed the ingenuity of interpreters but one
thing for me is resolutely clear: for Blake, Mary has given birth to
the cosmic Christ, that indwells in her, indwells in all of us, and is a
bond of peace. He steps between two women, cousins, and is part of and
welcomed by both. But giving birth to Christ and welcoming him are both
deeply natural and yet something that must be strived for. Mary swoons,
Elizabeth stretches, Christ dances in between.

All is grace and yet, paradoxically, something must be worked for - Jerusalem is built from mental fight.

It
is undoubtedly curious to think of Christmas as a time of struggle,
except possibly against that additional mince pie and the second turkey
sandwich, but it is vividly there in the narrative.

Mary is cast into suspicion of pre-marital sex. Joseph has to
wrestle between love and propriety, his own and his community's. The
whole country is thrown into change in order that an oppressive imperial
power assess tax. Joseph and Mary, in the last depths of pregnancy,
have to find somewhere to rest, when everything is taken, and end up in a
stable (or cave). The three wise men have to journey far into
uncertainty. It is a birth that triggers a massacre and precipitates the
Holy family's flight into refugee status!

You can read these as a parable on the costliness of discipleship,
of bearing truth into the world and its unwillingness to pay heed (and
how many examples of this have we seen this year as security forces beat
and kill unarmed protesters seeking after truth and a decent political
order).

You can read these esoterically, as Blake would, as exterior signs
of the internal struggle each individual must partake in to be able and
ready to receive truth - as a wise person once said as well as
understanding truth, we must be ready and able to withstand it.

Either way Blake's haunting painting both testifies to the
difficulty of receiving truth and affirms yet more insistently its
ever-present offer.

In spite of every obstacle a world can cast
up, Christ still dances, born of each of us and received by each of us. I
find it a deeply hopeful and realistic picture.

But back to turkey sandwiches (or alternative celebratory
happenings), may I wish you a very happy Christmas and a blessed New
Year - and may all our strivings be towards the building up of Jerusalem
(and as Mr Blake would say what that looks like will differ depending
on each individual's sight - I expect God can accommodate a multitude of
visions, religious people and dictators not withstanding)!!!

About Me

Golgonooza was William Blake's 'paradisial' city of the imagination. It captures my romantic longing for a place well-made in which people live according to their best lights and celebrate life (and to my love of Blake: artist, poet and radical)